Elite-unis

Ranking German Universities

Red Flags, the curds, us in Berlin...

Tomorrow 84 years ago, Turkey was declared a Republic by the turkish parliament.

Today, 2007, many Turks gathered in Istanbul (and not only) to show their support for the planned, and sadly everyday more likely, turkish strike on the northern regions of Irak.

On our way home, this afternoon, we travelled through Hermannplatz - the norther corner of the so-called Turkish area of Berlin, where a lot of people met up: red flags and not a lot more, actually.

Tomorrow, 2007, is a(nother) Monday, in here, and all the businesses start again: I have to go work, my girlfriend goes to the university and so on. That is also probably why a lot of people met in Hermannplatz on the Sunday the day before the Celebration Day.

The inner reasons are different though: a mixture of folklore and nationalism; similar to what we can notice in Berlin (Germany) looking at many turks living here: being born in Germany, with parents (born in Turkey) who were farmers in Turkey first and then workers in here, they do represent a pattern of half developed identities and profiles, of half catched chances, of half solved problems; as said: folklore and nationalism, with nike shoes and mp3 players, but flagging for a war for a land they visit on summer for vacation, every once in a while.

I think a war should always be avoided, at any cost, except that of being taken into a war anyway. I am scared by the way the problems and issues of the Curds are treated by many media in Europe: what is really often forgotten is that the whole population is involved in the effects of a war anyway, even if it would not have a single reason to start fighting. And I am not really keen of throwing, once more, rebels on the terrorists category (the trendiest way to get approval for warfare actions all over the world, nowadays).

But if you were attacked, well, it would be difficult to believe that it is for a good cause...once more this strike risks to bring bad development for the most, more flags on the street, and an even bigger sense of danger for many, for us as well probably, lazy european citizens, thinking that peace is the answer but not anymore fighting against those who plan wars...

I hope I do not see a lot of (any) nation(al) flags on the streets in the next days, unless until Herta Berlin wins the next match in the Bundesliga.

Have a nice week you all.

First post from a Linux computer...

Even if not very present on the media, there is series of ongoing discussions about important and relevant topics in the European Institutions (and not just about the lost of one post in a parliament with 600 deputees: 1/72 is so irrelevant)...most of them are not probably strange to me too.
Though I consider myself a pretty skeptical European citizen, even more when it is about integration matters, I do find this discussion very interesting and promising in its attempt to put in practice some common rules for the whole Union: general rules that could deal also with the non (directly) economical profitable sectors.
Have a read, if you feel like. EUobsever on environmental sanctions.
Have a nice day you all.

A plus and a minus by the Sunday voting sessions

While the vote results in Poland turned to be better than anybody would have ever forecasted a year ago, the one in Switzerland turned into a really depressing result...
We hope that Swiss people will turn their mind as fast as the Polish have done(two years of Kaczinsky government-alike in Switzerland?).

Question about Facebook: Did you also experience a one-week-honey-moon with the features that Facebook provides ("Oh, it is cool"!), while being turned off kind of fast afterwards? It happened to me, actually...and I am considering to let it thegre as it is...
I do not even know why I reviewed all those shitty movies I am supposed to have watched...ah ah...

Take care you all...

List of impressions, thoughts or whatever you would call them.

So dear all, since I am really bad in keeping up with this application, theoretically planned to make me communicating better with people, I write down some impressions of these last weeks:
0. "The Road" by McCarthy: poetry with a high percentage of astonishing raging beauty in black and white;
1. How much Bologna is a good example for an Italian city (never thought about it...sorry), how much Venice is somehow not;
2. How much I can eat, how long I can avoid eating;
3. A kid run over by a car just next to me: blonde hair and red face: both not moving;
4. How boring German breakfasts are, on the average;
5. How interesting recent Central European History is;
6. How much I love Berlin: Paul Lincke Ufer, Schlesischestrasse, Sophienstrasse, Freie Universität, Bundestag Ufer;
7. The beauty of the last Radiohead´s album (Weird Fishes/Arpeggi);
8. The fact that people pay a lot for it even when they could not pay anything!;
9. "Auf der anderen Seite": the most beautiful and poetic movie of this year: fuck "Babel", please and watch it, please!

Roma in Europe: a gloomy reality

Have a look

Krugman on Gore and the right

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/opinion/15krugman.html?ref=opinion

EU and the nuke

I guess it will be kind of unavoidable

A tough and chill week

I hardly have time to understand if I can stand such a lifestyle for the whole winter...
this week was pretty exausting and stressing...on one side I started the EES, on the other I was waiting to know if I could studying in German at the Free University in Berlin. The Master in German had turned in the week before into my first-best-option, but because of some troubles with the documents to handle there was the chance that they could refuse me as a student there.
In the end it all turned into the best for me...I won´t study Online, that is to some extent a pity, because the Master is really well done and so cool in its structure...
But I will be able to study, without working too much in order to get the money the Online Master would have costed me...
Apart from that I hardly have time to enjoy the hundreds of things going on in this city anyway, I hardly meet my girlfriend and my friends too...
I am back from Venice since a week and I feel I am sooo tired already...working till late at night is so fucking tiring...
What happened this week? Here in Germany they are so happy because they got two Nobel Prizes in one shot...they voted for the maintenance of the military mission in Afganistan and felt the first cold days of this probably long winter...
Does somebody feel like telling me his opinion about the expression "Random Play"?
Since a month my Facebook community is getting bigger and bigger and I eventually got to the question few days ago: according to what I think, I could be listed as a random player, but I would like to know your opinion, please.
Take care you all.

That is the craziest story of the month...

Jules Verne´s main character on a bike....